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Namco Museum DS (DS) by jp (Mar 23rd, 2025 at 14:11:20) |
I picked this up a while ago because it was cheap. It also had a few games I was curious to try - and while I could (probably) easily boot up MAME and load some roms...why not just try them here.
So, this game collects Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug II, Xevious, The Tower of Druaga, Mappy, Galaxian, and Pac-Man VS.
I was familiar (have played) most of these so I only really spent time with the ones I was most interested in...The Tower of Druaga, Mappy...and out of curiosity I tried Dig Dug...
a. I thought it was Dig Dug, but it's Dig Dug II which I had never played! This was a nice surprise...especially because the game has no digging...which seems really weird. It has a sort of top-down view and you can inflate enemies as per Dig Dug...they die you get points. I actually thought this was pretty lame. But I also noticed the map had these brown lines (that seemed to have no meaning) and these little squares (that also seemed to have no meaning). From reading the menu stuff - pretty impressive actually because it has all kinds of options (you can set dip switches and the like, so good effort here from Bandai Namco!), I realized there was another button in the game! So you can pump/inflate and also "drill". And you have to drill on the square points, this creates a fracture line and portions of the map sink into the sea. So, it's a top down island! Weirdly, my first game I did none of this and got pretty far just on pumping...but the drilling is where the points are! I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Dig Dug II didn't do so well commercially, and perhaps there's actual digging later on?
b. The Tower of Druaga - this game looks like a sparse version of Gauntlet meets Pac-Man. It's a maze, you need to get the key and leave for the next level. You're also a warrior with a sword and a shield. Sounds good! Except that I never really got/understood the timing for the attacks and the blocks and ended up dying all the time in ways that felt super unfair.
c. Mappy is sort of Elevator Action meets Hard Hat Mack? You need to pick up objects and avoid animals chasing you. You can drop on to trampolines that then let you land on different levels of the building/house you're in. This is fun and fine except that it's super easy to get caught in situations you can't get out of. Like, enemies coming from left and right and you can't escape. I think there might be something I'm missing here - either in terms of strategy or gameplay, because otherwise the game feels too unfair?
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13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PS5) by dkirschner (Mar 10th, 2025 at 17:15:54) |
This is a visual novel/RTS hybrid for the PS4 that I'd never heard of until I was looking for PS5 games. It's really well reviewed and caught my eye since it's from Vanillaware, who has made some great RPGs.
One thing to note is that although it’s a genre hybrid, its constituent genres are presented in unique ways. I haven’t played too many visual novels, but this one has more interactivity than what I have played. You control characters (13 of them) in wonderfully drawn 2.5d locales. Each scene looks hand-painted. The game is beautiful. But, you run around and talk to other characters like an RPG, exploring different story branches for each character, all of which contribute to telling the whole complex narrative. As you talk to characters, you discover “thoughts” and consider them in your “thought cloud.” Having more thoughts opens new interactions and branching pathways.
On the RTS side, battles involve your squad of up to 6 characters defending a node in the center of the screen. It’s not tower defense, not that kind of defending. It’s also not really MOBA-esque. It’s more like a horde mode, except it’s an RTS instead of a shooter. Hordes of kaiju are encroaching on all sides, gunning for the central node, and you need to prevent them from destroying it.
So, those are the two halves of the game. Do the “Japanese high school” sim thing, then do the “kaiju mech combat” thing.
I found the visual novel portion to be far more compelling than the RTS portion. The story is very complicated, which made it fun to try and follow. It’s also well-written, with a useful encyclopedia of people, places, and things, as well as the option to rewatch any scene you want to. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with something like this (nor cared to), but it was so creative, and they throw a lot of twists and turns at you, so it was consistently exciting. There are 13 protagonists, numerous other characters, and like 5 time periods (yes, time travel). And the story is told in a completely nonlinear way, as you bounce around from character to character, with scenes unfolding anywhere across the span of the like 200 years that the game takes place in. This means that some of the protagonists are different people in different times or timelines. This was confusing at first, but once you realize this is happening, you just need to learn who is who when. To make it even crazier, you learn that some characters are androids, others have implanted memories, some characters are figments of imagination, and others appear to be cats. And since they’re in high school and this is a visual novel, they are all romantically attracted to someone.
The RTS part didn’t engage me as much because it was simple compared to the thought-provoking story. It’s connected, of course, but you basically earn upgrade points (can’t recall the actual name) throughout the story and by racking up high scores in combat. Spend those on unlocking and upgrading special attacks. Deploy your forces, and on normal at least, you will easily win all battles until the very end on normal by using basic tactics. There are four classes of sentinel (the giant mechs that the teens pilot to fight the kaiju): a brawler, a long-range one, an “all-rounder,” and one that flies. They’ve all got their strengths. Brawlers do big damage up close to ground enemies. Long-range sentinels get some powerful missile barrage attacks. Some characters are geared toward support. It didn’t seem to really matter what I upgraded. I actually just applied upgrade points completely evenly across all equipped skills for all characters (get everyone’s skills to level 2, then all to level 3, then all to level 4, etc.). And I totally ignored putting upgrade points into base stats. I am sure this is all more important on higher difficulties. Like I said though, it did get hard on normal at the very end. I turned the difficulty down to easy for the last two battles because I kept dying to a boss. Easy is easy.
So yeah, that’s 13 Sentinels. The visual novel part was great and the RTS part was fun enough to carry me to the next visual novel part. It also took me quite a bit longer to play than I thought it would, and I’m not sure why. On the plus side, I got a lot of exercise done while playing since it was so much reading! Step, step, step.
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Call Of Duty Mobile (Other) by Mercy (Feb 26th, 2025 at 16:16:40) |
Hey,hello I've just created a gamelog today on Call of dutyobile.
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Fez (PS3) by jp (Feb 23rd, 2025 at 18:22:49) |
Oh wait, I did post!
lol.
Ok, so here's what I recall from the first time I played - over ten years ago now. I remembered it was fun and interesting and not too difficult and that I started to get overwhelmed with secret stuff and not knowing where I was in the game. It's the sort of game that, now that I started it over again (and I'm 5 hours in, and about 85% complete according to the menu), doesn't go down well if you stop playing for too long. This is mostly because it's not easy to move around the different areas of the game - even with the map - so you have to kind of remember everything... Right now I'm trying to get to 32 cubes - I've picked up a few blue ones (I think it's nice that these also count towards the number you need) - and once I get them, I go through a special door and that should be the end.
The game does "hold up" really well - it still feels fun and reasonably fresh. It doesn't help much that I finished Tunic not too long ago, and both games rely a lot on secrets and discovery. Here the secrets feel a bit more awkward - especially the "do this input on the controller" ones...not a big fan of those, and while Tunic and Fez both have them, they seem better in Tunic than here...
Now that I'm on the "get the last cubes I need" run - and stuck on an annoying rising-lava level - I'm starting to get more annoyed with the navigation across the world. The map does help - once you figure out how to navigate it, but it's annoying to have to figure out (again) which doors go to where so chart a path back to the beginning. It's not quite "metroidvania backtracking" but worse in many ways...because there's puzzling involved...
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Fez (PS3) by jp (Feb 23rd, 2025 at 18:15:47) |
Huh.
So, I knew I had played Fez for maybe an hour or so. I must have created the GameLog but never actually wrote anything. And here I am today, 2 PS generations later playing it on PS5 and NOT bouncing off the game as I did before.
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2285 registered gamers and 3251 games. 7783 GameLogs with 13259 journal entries. 5112 games are currently being played.
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Metal Gear Solid (PS) by altfire |
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most recent entry: Friday 8 February, 2008
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GAMEPLAY:
Another thing worth mentioning about the gameplay is the creative radar system. The game requires players to proceed with extreme caution. In the upper corner of the screen there is a radar that alerts players to the location of enemies. Each enemy has a cone shaped line if sight. The player must try to avoid entering this cone in order to avoid detection. If the player is spotted, the enemy will sound the alarm and the radar will be jammed until the alarm timer reaches zero.
As the payers progress through the game they encounter some of the most imaginative and memorable boss characters in gaming history. They each have an incredibly deep and rich background story that make the players sympathize with them and their cause. Also, the way some of the boss encounters are carried out is pure genius. As an example one of the many bosses in the game is a powerful psychic named Psycho Mantis. He has the ability to read people’s minds and can anticipate the player’s every move. There is only one way to beat him: plug the PlayStation controller into the second controller slot so that he can’t read your mind. If that’s not creative then I don’t know what is.
DESIGN:
What starts out as a simple covert mission to disarm the terrorists, slowly turn into one of the most complex and well written plots in any videogame. If I wanted to explain the storyline then I would have to dedicate a whole paper to it. Let’s just say it involves themes that range from cloning and genetic research to government conspiracies, betrayal, love, and the dangers of nuclear weapons.
The graphics are obviously outdated by today’s standards but back in 1998, Metal Gear Solid had the most incredible graphics seen in any videogame. Not only did the game look amazing but the attention to detail was simply amazing. The audio was (and still is) among the best in videogame history. From the orchestral music to the top-notch voice work, this game set the benchmark for what videogame audio should be.
I think it’s more appropriate to call Metal Gear Solid an interactive movie rather than a game. Saying that there are a lot of cut-scenes in this game is an understatement. I’m not exaggerating when I say that 40% of the game is cut-scenes. The story is such an essential part of the game that at times it feels as if the players are “playing” a movie. Some criticized the game for its short length and long cut-scenes but for those who enjoy a good storyline, this is a must-buy. 10 years after its release, Metal Gear Solid is still one of the best videogames I’ve played
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